VA Resuming Normal Operations

Week of October 28, 2013

Employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) are working to resume normal operations as quickly as possible. With the government shutdown over, the Nov. 1 benefit checks will go out to approximately 5 million Veterans and other beneficiaries as scheduled. During the government shutdown, VA medical centers, clinics, and other health services remained open. Due to the shutdown, VA claims processors were unable to continue working 20 hours of overtime per month to reduce the backlog of claims, overtime that has helped VA significantly reduce the disability claims backlog by more than 190,000 claims over the last six months. Mandatory overtime will resume immediately and will continue as planned through Nov. 16, at a minimum.